The Lamp of Fate eBook

The latter, with her accumulated wisdom of seventy
years, saw more clearly than the younger woman, although
even she hardly understood that sense of the deadly
emptiness and failure of her life which had overwhelmed
Magda since her return to Friars’ Holm.
But the old woman realised that she had passed through
a long period of strain, and that, now the reaction
had come, the Vallincourt blood in her might drive
her into almost any extreme of conduct.

“If only Michael were on the spot!” she
burst out irritably. “I own I’m disappointed
in the man! I was so sure six months would bring
him to his senses.”

“Written to him?” A flash of the old defiant
spirit sounded in Magda’s voice. “No,
nor shall I.”

“Don’t be a fool, child. He’s
probably learned something during this last twelve
months—­as well as you. Don’t
let pride get in your way now.”

“It’s not pride. Marraine, I never
knew—­I never thought——­Look
at me! What have I to give Michael now?
Have you forgotten that he’s an artist and that
beauty means everything to him?”

“Well?”

“‘Well!’” Magda held out her
hands. “Can’t you see that I’m
changed? . . . Michael wouldn’t want me
to pose for him as Circe now!”

“He wanted you for a wife—­not a model,
my dear. You can buy models at so much the hour.”

“Oh, Marraine! You won’t understand——­”

Lady Arabella took the slender, work-roughened hands
in hers.

“Perhaps I understand better than you think,”
she said quietly. “There are other ways
of assessing life than merely in terms of beauty.
And you can believe this, too: you’ve lost
nothing from the point of view of looks that a few
months of normal healthy life won’t set right.
Moreover, if you’d grown as plain as a pikestaff,
I don’t think Michael would care twopence!
He’s an artist, I know. He can’t help
that, but he’s a man first. And he’s
a man who knows how to love. Promise me one thing,”
she went on insistently. “Promise that you’ll
do nothing definite—­yet. Not, at least,
without consulting me.”

Magda hesitated.

“Very well. I’ll do nothing without—­telling
you—­first.”

That was the utmost concession she would make, and
with that her godmother had to be content.

The same evening a letter in Lady Arabella’s
spirited, angular handwriting sped on its way to Paris.

“If you’re not absolutely determined to
ruin both your own and Magda’s lives, my dear
Michael, put your pride and your ridiculous principles
in your pocket and come back to England. I don’t
happen to be a grandmother, but I’m quite old
enough for the job, so you might pay my advice due
respect by taking it.”